


Broken If Revealed

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Arguing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Office, Panic Attacks, Prompt Fic, Reveal, Secrets, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen discovers Foggy's catastrophe contingency plans, and a number of secrets come out in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken If Revealed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for [shinyrock6498](http://shinyrock6498.tumblr.com) in response to the prompt: _Daredevil: awkward reveal, "This is- it's not what it looks like...?"_
> 
> I sat down to write a cute and tiny fill. I looked up two days and two thousand words of angst later. Clearly something went awry, but hopefully the results are enjoyable despite that mismatch.

Karen generally had a lot of respect for Matt and Foggy -- they'd slogged through law school and passed the bar without losing their moral compasses, after all -- but when it came to common sense... well, that was a different question. She was absolutely sure their firm would crash and burn without her. Matt was locked in a bitter war with his spellchecker, Foggy couldn't manage accounting to save his life, and neither of them had the slightest idea how to maintain either physical or electronic filing systems.

Despite privacy concerns, she'd gotten in the habit of going through Foggy's desk when he and Matt took a long Friday lunch, just to make sure he didn't lose important documents in the chaos. (Matt, more sensible on this subject, didn't even try to keep his own documents and just gave her a Braille label-maker and a brief lesson in its use so he could navigate her own filing cabinets.)

So far she'd retrieved one overdue bill just in time to keep their electricity from being turned off, one accidentally overlooked witness statement that turned out to unravel a key portion of the prosecution's case against Ms. Agatha Neuhauser, and the takeout menu for the Japanese-Tibetan fusion restaurant Foggy was in love with. She'd left them all in Foggy's inbox without comment, and indulged in a mix of pride and amusement that he still hadn't figured out that she was his mysterious 'paperwork fairy-godmother.'

Today, though, she didn't want to let her discovery pass in silence.

"Hey, Foggy, can I ask you something?" she said when he and Matt piled in through the main door, still laughing over who even knew what.

Something in her voice must have given away her mood, because Matt raised his eyebrows, said, "I'll get started on the motion to compel disclosure of Mr. Rathore's travel itinerary and leave you two alone, shall I?" and vanished abruptly into his office.

Foggy frowned after him, good mood deflating slightly. Then he turned back to Karen with a broad smile. "Sure, ask away. Oh, wait -- did I screw up my billable hour reporting again? If I did, I am so, so sorry, and I swear I'll... probably keep doing it, but hopefully not again until next week?"

Karen smiled despite herself. "You won't be in the office until next week. I think that's a pretty safe bet," she said. "But no, I wanted to talk to you about a file." She glanced toward Matt's office, with its closed door and shadowed interior -- he'd forgotten to turn the light on again -- and bit her lip. "Um. Come into the conference room?"

Foggy also glanced at Matt's door, then looked back toward Karen with an uneasy expression. "Uh, sure. But be honest with me here: on a scale of one to 'I can never show my face in public again,' how embarrassing is this going to be?"

"To be determined," Karen said, and opened the door to the conference room -- which hardly deserved the name, but she shared Foggy's belief that it was important to plan ahead. She liked that about him, liked to talk half-jokingly, half-seriously about the future they and Matt would share.

She was less sure now that they were anticipating the _same_ future.

Foggy closed the door, lowered its cheap plastic blind, and sat down across the equally cheap plastic table from Karen. He folded his hands, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay, hit me."

Karen set the unlabeled file folder she'd been holding onto the table. Then she flipped the front cover open to show the slimmer, bright red folder hidden inside, bearing a label in Foggy's looping handwriting: 'Contingency Plans (for when Matt's life inevitably goes to hell because he is a masochistic ASSHOLE)'.

Foggy's breath caught audibly in his throat. "Oh," he said. "Uh. This is-- it's not what it looks like?"

Karen put her hands flat on the table and leaned forward. "I think it's exactly what it looks like. And I think it's only the tip of the iceberg, because you're amazingly cryptic even in private notes. So tell me, what is Matt doing that makes you think he's going to get arrested and disbarred, or just plain killed? Is he trying to infiltrate the mob? Is it related to that 'car crash' from two months ago? Which I know was not an actual car crash, by the way, and I'm going to get the real story someday, but that's not important right now."

Foggy was trying to interrupt. She plowed over him, doing her best to convey her anger without getting so loud Matt might overhear. "Whatever the problem is, why haven't you done anything to get him out of it instead of just assuming he's going to crash and burn? And why didn't you tell me anything? He's my friend too! I work here too! I have a right to know -- and to help!"

"And I have a right to expect my private notes to stay private," Foggy countered. "Why were you going through my desk in the first place?"

"Because you can't organize things to save your life and somebody needs to make sure you don't lose important stuff behind your secret stash of Starbursts," Karen said. "That's not the point. The point is that Matt clearly needs our help, that I am sick of secrets, and that we all need to work _together_ if we're going to stay alive long enough to do any good for the people of New York."

Foggy opened and closed his mouth several times. When he finally found some words, they weren't much more coherent: "I-- that is-- I wish--" He took a deep breath and tried again. "Look, you're absolutely right that Matt needs help and secrets are terrible, but it's not my place--"

The door swung open to reveal Matt, sans cane, standing with an unfamiliar tension in his shoulders and a strange twist to his mouth. "Foggy. Thank you for-- for everything. But Karen's right. I do need your help -- both of you -- and I think maybe I'm getting tired of secrets too. Especially since they seem to be contagious."

Foggy glanced at the red folder and winced.

"Matt?" Karen frowned in confusion. She hadn't heard him leave his office, and how had he overheard them anyway? "Um. I'm sorry for talking to Foggy behind your back. I didn't want to pressure you, but--"

Matt pulled off his glasses, revealing a faded black eye and a small cut just at the top of his cheekbone, as if he'd been punched by someone wearing a sharp-edged ring. "Karen. It's okay. I should probably have told you this a while ago, but I'm not very good at-- at being open."

"No shit. Which is hilarious considering what a pathetic liar you are," Foggy said, a little sourly. "You only get away with it because your life is so implausible nobody in their right mind would ever guess the truth."

Matt looked pained. Karen felt her eyebrows rise. "This is what you argued about, isn't it. The car crash that wasn't a car crash, and whatever has Foggy so worried he's making contingency plans for what sounds like-- like you dying and bringing everything we've worked for crashing down with you. So _what is it?_ "

Matt swallowed, aimed his eyes toward her mouth, and said, "I'm Daredevil."

"Bullshit," Karen said involuntarily.

But as Matt and Foggy started talking over each other in an amazingly incompetent attempt to explain -- made worse by the fact that Matt clearly didn't want to and Foggy was obviously a bit vague on the details of the whole thing -- evidence slotted together in her mind, piece after damning piece. How the man in the mask knew to be at her apartment the night she retrieved the files. Matt's constant injuries. The way Matt and Foggy had stammered through a non-explanation of how they'd contacted the Devil. Matt's grace at avoiding temporary obstacles when he was tired or distracted, even though he'd crash into them when he was awake and alert. Why they couldn't get hold of Matt the night of the bombings.

It was completely implausible -- completely _impossible_ \-- and yet...

"Oh my god. You are Daredevil. I don't know how, but you are."

Matt made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. "I've just been trying to tell--"

"I don't care how you do it! Not now. I'll care later. Later you're going to tell me everything. But Foggy's right. This is going to go to hell, and then Foggy and I will have to pick up the pieces. What if they disbar you? What if they let Fisk out? What if--" What if somebody started looking into Matt and found out all of Karen's secrets in the process? What if _Fisk_ found out? About his mother, about Wesley, about--

Karen pressed her hands to her face and tried to breathe.

"Hey. Hey, Karen." Foggy leaned across the table to brush his fingers against her shoulder. "That's why I made the folder. Because we need to plan for the worst, just in case. But now you can help me knock sense into Matt so he stays safe -- well, safer -- well, less unsafe -- and plan some good alibis and just, organize things so they work. Like you already do, but now you, too, can join in the illegal and morally dubious side business I didn't know I was establishing alongside our nice, honest law firm!"

The joke fell like a deflated balloon through the sound of Karen's ragged breathing.

Matt's face crumpled and he stepped forward, reaching out in entreaty. "Foggy, I'm--"

"If you say you're sorry one more time without putting forth any genuine plans to change what you're doing, I will hit you," Foggy said. "I don't care if you're a ninja. I will do it. Then I will start doing my laundry with too much Tide and those spring-fresh dryer sheets, buy some hideously floral-scented shampoo and a clashing cologne, and spill cheese snacks all around the office until you sneeze yourself into submission."

"Please don't," Karen said from behind the shield of her hands, her breath and heartbeat finally approaching normal once more. "I like breathing through my nose and I think I'd have to stop if you do that."

"Yeah, I think-- I think that counts as cruel and unusual punishment," Matt said, the careful lightness of his words a thin disguise over the watery tone of his voice. "We should keep it so I'm the only one in the firm actively breaking the law."

Karen lost the next minute to the roar of blood in her ears and the frantic struggle to draw air back into her lungs. When she could hear again, both Matt and Foggy had rounded the table; Foggy was rubbing her back while Matt held her shaking hands pressed between his own palms.

"Breathe," he was saying. "In, and hold, two, three. Now out, and hold, two, three. It's okay, Karen. Now in, and hold, two, three. And out, and hold--"

"It's-- I've got it. I'm good. You can stop," Karen managed to say. "Thank you. I'm sorry."

"Seriously, what is it with you people and your unfair hotness and inability to understand the proper application of apologies?" Foggy asked the air. "You don't need to apologize for a panic attack. What you need is a hug and a drink. Maybe not in that order."

Karen lowered her hands to the table, then wrapped her fingers around Matt's wrists when he tried to pull away. "I do need to apologize, though. Because Matt's not the only one with secrets. And mine could cause-- could cause--"

She felt Matt's pulse warm under her fingertips and Foggy's hand gentle and comforting on her shoulder. She wanted them to stay this close forever, but she couldn't bear to let them keep comforting her under false pretenses. "Do you remember James Wesley? Fisk's assistant, who hired you to defend Mr. Healy and then disappeared?" she asked.

Matt grimaced and nodded.

"That slimy creep?" Foggy said. "Ugh. What about him?"

Karen closed her eyes and shoved through the panic setting like glue in her throat. "I killed him. I shot him six times and wiped down the table and threw away the gun. I didn't need to, I could have stopped after one and gotten away, but I killed him and _I'm not sorry_."

Both Matt and Foggy had gone very still during her little speech.

But they didn't pull away.

Oh, Karen thought. _Oh_. She opened her eyes. "I think," she said, looking down at the red paper under her hands, "that if you're serious about all three of us working together, you might need a contingency folder for me too."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Broken If Revealed (The File It Under the Letter D Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051849) by [significantowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl)




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